Tracing the Hair Evolution of the Beatles: From Mop Tops to Psychedelic Shags

John Lennon would have turned 74 today. The man who wrote antiwar anthems like “Imagine” and famously asserted that the most revolutionary thing you could do was to “stay in bed and grow out your hair” may forever be associated with the seventies peace movement, but it was his remarkable physical transformation during his time with the Beatles that reflected the rapidly changing cultural landscape of the sixties. In just five years, John, Paul, Ringo, and George went from mop-topped heartthrobs on The Ed Sullivan Show to shaggy-haired pioneers of psychedelic rock with albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Yellow Submarine. In honor of the counterculture icon’s birthday, here’s a look at the Beatles’ hair evolution.

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Photographed in London in February of 1964, just days before their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show would set off a global wave of Beatlemania and replace the Elvis pompadour with a new hair look. The “Arthur,” as the band called their mod mop tops, was inspired by German art student Jürgen Vollmer, whom the Beatles met during their Hamburg days.